Tiga surveying developers on game cloning

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Questionnaire looks into issues such as copyright, IP ownership and licensing

UK game industry trade body Tiga is calling on developers to offer their opinions on the issue of copyright and game cloning.

The survey includes 15 questions on subjects such as whether your business has suffered from game cloning, IP ownership, licensing and copyright enforcement.

The questionnaire also aims to discover the percentage of UK studios that own their own IP and whether they have had to defend their rights through court.

"The game industry is changing at a rapid rate but the issue of copyright remains important,” said Tiga CEO Richard Wilson.

“In particular, IP ownership can be crucial to building a sustainable games business. I hope that all developers and digital publishers will complete the Tiga survey on copyright issues so that Tiga can represent the industry’s views effectively on this important subject.”

Game cloning and copyright issues have become an increasingly bigger problem for the industry during the last few years, particularly on iOS and Android devices.

Spry Fox recently made an out of court settlement against 6Waves Lolapps after it accused the studio of cloning it’s own title Triple Town with the release of Yeti Town.

Although settled out of court, ownership rights for Yeti Town were transferred to Spry Fox, with 6waves Lolapps also forced earlier in the year to shed its staff due to legal costs.

A number of other developers have also accused various studios of copying there ideas, such as Nimblebit’s claim that Zynga cloned its hugely popular Tiny Tower game with Dream Heights.

In February earlier this year, Apple was also forced into deleting a range of counterfeit and clones on the App Store that were found to be infringing copyright law and unethically duplicating popular game designs.